Written on Wednesday, November 20, 2013.
Trains. Buses. Voices on loudspeakers, announcing arrivals, departures. Huge hanging clocks, enormous clock towers, indicating to the surrounding crowd whether they should take their time and stroll or rush by in a flurry. Hours passing in minutes, blurring the line between memory and truth. Funny thing, time. It never passes as one wishes it to, but rather snatches the hours away like a razor blade from a child just when one needs them. Or when one is early, it seems to slog by slower than the most delayed snail in existence. The entire country rushes past the window, a patchwork quilt of years of fieldwork. It takes breaks now and then, giving way to towering grey that reaches into the heights of the sky. But it never takes long to resume, to leave the urban jungle behind in favor of the vast landscapes of wheat and corn.